


Origami People

by tanarill



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Magic, Magical Realism, Origami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-06
Updated: 2007-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-07 00:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13423248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill
Summary: Over the years, he'd noticed a number of interesting Origami people in his line.





	Origami People

**Author's Note:**

> This was from a prompt generated by Neil Gaiman's magical crystal ball, which was a cute bit of programming on his journal that, when clicked and dragged, would pop up with a line of text from somewhere in the archive. This was supposed to act as a kind of fortune cookie. I played around with it for a bit and used it as a prompt generator, but it only ever gave me this one excellent prompt: "Over the years, I've noticed a number of interesting Origami people in my line."

Over the years, he had noticed a large number of interesting Origami people in his line.

Generally, Origami people were just that–people made of origami, usually the servants of some power witch or wizard–and had no more personality than the paper they were made of. But sometimes one found the other kind of Origami people, the ones made by witches and wizards who didn’t yet know what they were, or the hopes of a person who has no other hope, or simply the pure artistry of a poet as he tried to put to paper the sound of a happy baby.

These Origami people were different. They were, often, not so gaudy as their more magical counterparts: they were paper that was not creamy white and speckled with gold and embossed with a monogram, and they were not so perfect in their manners and their true nature showed through quite often. But, for all that, they were more real than any of those creations of the powerful mages.

Still, they stood as patiently in line as any other, and this was important. When he came to town, people stood in line for the chance to browse through his cart, which was much bigger on the inside then the outside, for a few short minutes and find what it was they needed. No one could wait the line for another, as many magic users had discovered to their dismay, often quite late in the day when there was no chance that they’d get to the front of the line before he closed and left. But the interesting Origami people . . .

. . . often, they just came to talk to him, or they came with gifts that were small and still quite large enough to blanket the world. Or they came asking the same, for their little masters and mistresses and the lonely old women with whom they stayed and the animals that they cared for. They didn’t _have_ to, and they knew that it was a day of a time that was too short as it was, but they came anyway, for some reason known only unto themselves.

He did what he could, binding the small and wonderful magics that made them and capping them and teaching them to draw, and much as possible, from joy. It was not much, but it would see to it that they could linger perhaps a few months longer than they otherwise would have, fighting despair and planting joy where they went.

There was little enough small magic as it was; and if they chose to make of themselves gifts to the world, these interesting, plain Origami people, who was he to stop them?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so California is no longer on fire. This is good. The plants burned in the fire, so the roots stopped, um, holding the hills in place. Then the hills got wet and decided not to be hills any more, and also a few water lines broke when the ex-hills (now mud) hit them with very big rocks, making more mud, which washed away a dam broke so then even more water. Long story short, all became mud, twenty confirmed deaths, three people still missing, and the 101 is closed between LA and Santa Barbara. This last means the groceries have pretty much run out of nonperishables. I'm safe, but everything is expensive.
> 
> Look, California. Can you please [go one second without a natural disaster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHi4UHT7ZKo)?
> 
> On the plus side, I made friends with my housemate's kitty. Kitty! \o/


End file.
